Recently, a driving circuit of a display device, a personal computer or the like includes a semiconductor device such as a transistor, a diode or the like as a microscopic switching element. Especially in a display device, a transistor is used as a selective transistor that supplies a voltage or a current (data signal) in accordance with the gray scale of each of pixels that determine a video to be displayed, and also is used in a driving circuit that selects a pixel to which a data signal is to be supplied. The characteristics required of a transistor usable for a display device vary in accordance with the use thereof. For example, a transistor used as a selective transistor is required to have a low off-current or little variance from another transistor. A transistor used in a driving circuit is required to have a high on-current.
To be used in a display device as described above, a transistor including a channel formed of amorphous silicon, low-temperature polysilicon or single crystalline silicon has been conventionally developed. A display device using amorphous silicon or low-temperature polysilicon can be formed in a process of 600° C. or lower, and therefore can be formed by use of a glass substrate. Especially, a transistor using amorphous silicon in a display device can be formed with a simpler structure in a process of 400° C. or lower, and therefore can be formed by use of, for example, a large glass substrate referred to as an eighth-generation glass substrate (2160×2460 mm). However, such a transistor including a channel formed of amorphous silicon has a low mobility and is not usable in a driving circuit.
A transistor including a channel formed of low-temperature polysilicon or single crystalline silicon has a higher mobility than the semiconductor device including a channel formed of amorphous silicon, and therefore is usable as a selective transistor and also as a transistor in a driving circuit. However, such a transistor including a channel formed of low-temperature polysilicon or single crystalline silicon has a complicated structure and needs a complicated process to be manufactured. In addition, such a transistor needs to be formed in a process of 500° C. or higher, and therefore cannot be formed by use of a large glass substrate as described above. A transistor including a channel formed of amorphous silicon, low-temperature polysilicon or single crystalline silicon has a high off-current. In the case where such a transistor is used as a selective transistor, it is difficult to keep the applied voltage for a long time.
Recently, display devices have progressively become of higher resolution, and display devices of a resolution referred to as “4K”, with which the number of pixels in the row direction is 4096 and the number of pixels in the column direction is 2160, have been developed. In addition, in order to display a moving picture more smoothly, a driving method of displaying 120 or 240 frames per second, instead of 60 frames according to the conventional art, has been developed. Along with the development of such technologies, the time used to supply a data signal corresponding to the gray scale of one pixel has been shortened as compared with by the conventional art. Therefore, in order to supply a data signal to pixels in a shorter time stably, it is desired to increase the mobility of a selective transistor included in the pixel.
For the above-described reasons, a display device including a transistor that includes a channel formed of an oxide semiconductor, instead of amorphous silicon, low-temperature polysilicon or single crystalline silicon, has been progressively developed recently (e.g., Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2014-194579). A transistor including a channel formed of an oxide semiconductor can be formed with a simple structure and in a low-temperature process like a transistor including a channel formed of amorphous silicon. In addition, it is known that a transistor including a channel formed of an oxide semiconductor has a mobility higher than that of a transistor including a channel formed of amorphous silicon, and also has a very low off-current.
However, the mobility of the transistor including a channel formed of an oxide semiconductor is lower than that of the transistor including a channel formed of low-temperature polysilicon or single crystalline silicon. Therefore, in order to provide a higher on-current, the transistor including a channel formed of an oxide semiconductor needs to have a shorter L length (channel length) or a longer W length (channel width).
In order to shorten the L length of the transistor described in Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2014-194579, a distance between a source and a drain needs to be shortened. The distance between a source and a drain is determined by a photolithography step and an etching step. In the case where patterning is performed by photolithography, size reduction is restricted by the size of a mask pattern of an exposure device. Especially in the case where patterning is performed on a glass substrate by photolithography, the minimum size of a mask pattern is about 2 μm, and the reduction in the channel length of the transistor is restricted by such a size of the mask pattern. The channel length of the transistor is restricted by photolithography, and therefore, is influenced by the in-plane variance of the substrate in the photolithography step.
In Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2014-194579, a selective transistor in each of pixels needs to be located so as not to overlap a gate line or a data line. In the case where the W length of the transistor is increased, the ratio of an area occupied by the transistors in a pixel region is raised and thus the numerical aperture of the pixels is decreased.